The land where the marae stands was part of the rohe of the Waiohua confederacy of Tāmaki Māori until the 1740s, subsequently settled by Ngāti Whātua until 1840.

[3][4] In the late 1840s, Governor George Grey asked Pōtatau Te Wherowhero to settle with his people in the Māngere Bridge area to defend the township of Auckland.

[5] Pōtatau Te Wherowhero and members of Ngāti Mahuta (a hapū of Waikato Tainui) settled near to the land where his brother Kati Takiwaru lived, an area of 480 acres around the base of Māngere Mountain.

[7] In addition to the farmland, Lot 5A included a sandy beach and a natural source of spring water, where people would wash clothes.

[8] In 1933, a petition to the government was made to set aside one acre of land for a wharenui and marae,[4] however plans did not eventuate due to the effects of the Great Depression.

[10] Prime Minister Keith Holyoake and opposition leader Walter Nash, who both attended the tangi in Onehunga, noticed the lack of space and resources that the community was facing, and agreed for the government to co-finance a marae after witnessing the difficulties.

[16][6] This had a strong effect on older members of the community, who were no longer able to walk between the marae and the cemetery at St James Anglican Church to the west.

[6] The plan to undertake the 1975 Māori land march was initiated by Dame Whina Cooper at a hui held at Te Puea Memorial Marae.

[29] Because of the emergency housing initiative, Hurimoana Dennis, chairman of Te Puea Memorial Marae, was nominated at the New Zealander of the Year Awards.

[30] In the 2022 Queen's Birthday and Platinum Jubilee Honours, Dennis was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to Māori and the community.

[31] In July 2017, the Manaaki Tāngata was revived for the next six months,[32] and in the same year opened Piki te Ora, a multipurpose facility to combat homelessness.